Beauplan.
seize their Goods without showing a reason for it; the Peasants of the Crown, when molested, having their Complaints heard before the King, who protests them, and keeps their Privileges.
A Gentleman cannot be condemn’d to death for killing a Peasant belonging to another Gentleman, but is by Law to pay 40 Grivenes to the Heirs of the Party killed to have their Discharge; a Grivene is worth 32 Sols. In these Cases the Testimony of two Gentlemen is sufficient to condemn a Peasant, but there must be fourteen Peasants to convict a Gentleman.
Strangers, Peasants, and Burgers.
Strangers may not purchase Land there, nor the native Peasants, who never can possess any of their own; but they and their Children hold their Farms for Life, pay great Rents to their Lords, and cannot sell or mortgage, but the Lord can enter upon them when he pleases. In Towns the Burgers may buy Houses and Gardens, about the same Towns within their Liberties. By this it appears that all the Lands in that Republick are possels'd by the Nobility, who are very rich, excepting only the Lands remitted to the Crown (which are not Hereditary, like those we have spoken of) where there are certain Villages depending of the Crown, which the Kings have given to Boyars, who are a sort of People inferior to the Gentry, and above the trading sort, to whom the King has given Estates for them and their Heirs, who enjoy them upon condition they shall serve in the Wars at their own Expence, as often as the Great General requires, and do all they are commanded for the Service of the State. Tho most of these are very rich, yet there are some among them poor enough; but the Nobility is rich, as has been said. In Masovia, where there is a great number of them, being at least the sixth part of the Inhabitants, they are not so well to pass; for which reason a great many of them go to Plow, and serve great Men as Gentlemen-Followers, which is more honourable than to be Coachmen, as the most stupid of them are forc’d to be. Of this sort were two that serv'd me as Coachmen several Years, whilst I was in that Country imploy’d as first Captain of the Artillery, and the King’s Ingineer, tho they were Gentlemen of good Birth.
The Patrimony of the Nobility is free from Winter-Quarters, and Garisons; and the Army is only permitted to march through, being never allow’d to be in Garison, but upon the Demeans of the Crown.
When several Brothers are Coheirs, the eldest divides, and the youngest chuses.
A Widow marrying again, may, if she pleases, give all the she has to him that marries her, and so disappoint her Children: This Law makes Children obedient to their Parents.
Manners of the Polish Nobility.
The Polish Nobility are humble, and complaisant enough towards Superiors, such as the Palatines and other Officers of the Crown; courteous and well-bred to their Equals and Countrymen, but haughty and insolent to their Inferiors; affable to Strangers, whom yet they do not much affect, or willingly converse with: as for instance, the Turks and Tartars, whom they seldom see but in War, and with Sword in hand. As for the Muscovites, by reason of their Brutality, they do not associate, or deal with them nor with the Swedes and Germans, for whom they have so great an aversion that they cannot bear with them, but hate them mortally; and whensoever they make use of Germans, it is for very great need. On the contrary, they call the French Brothers, simpathizing with, and being ally’d to them in Behaviour, as well in their free way of delivering themselves without Dissimulation, as in their easy jovial Temper, which inclines them to laugh and sing without any melancholy. So the French who converse with those People, have a great esteem for them, because generally they are good-natur’d, generous, void of Malice, not given to Revenge, witty; and those that apply themselves, improve mightily. They have excellent Memories; are magnificent, honourable, expensive in their Habit, wearing rich Linings and I have seen some of Sables worth above two thousand Crowns, adorn’d with large Gold Buttons set with Rubies, Emeralds, Diamonds, and other precious Stones. They carry abundance of Servants after them; are very courageous, resolute and skilful at their Weapons, wherein they outdo all their Neighbours, as making it their common Exercise, for they are seldom or never without War against some of the powerful Princes of Europe, as the Turks, Tartars, Muscovites, Swedes, Germans and sometimes two or three of them together, as happen’d in the Years 1632, and 1633, when they were at War with the Turks, Tartars, and Muscovites, and came off very well, after several Victories obtain’d over them, follow’d by that over the Swedes in 1635.After
